As you might be aware, the eastern part of
North America is experiencing positively Arctic weather, which we’re told will
hang around for several days.
So you can expect me to be on the lookout for
silliness.
Viz:
P.S. From the Twitter thread, apparently the poster logged the danger, but went out for the food anyhow.
Here’s another entry from the vanity plate collection:
It was on a vehicle that you’d generally
associate with testosterone, although I did not see the occupant(s):
No indication of the aircraft of choice, and no way to tell if the 80 is year of birth, or of active flight status.
Still not as good as one I saw once in the
parking lot of Star of the Sea Church in Virginia Beach. That one was SPY NAVY,
and the driver turned out to be a rather dishy guy with a gorgeous tenor voice.
The other day I was at
a thrift store, browsing through the housewares aisles (sometimes you can find small
Corning casserole dishes, which I seem to use at a rate of knots) and my eye
was caught by the stemware. I don’t know how this happened, but—while I have an
abundance of wine glasses—I’m down to only two Champagne flutes, so I looked a
bit closer.
It was too much to hope
for actual crystal in this setting, but what made me stop and wonder was this
random glass:
It’s hard to see the
actual words, but trust me on this:
Ryan
& Lindsey
August
12, 2006
(And a seahorse. What do
you suppose the seahorse signified?)
That’s nearly twelve
years ago. I wonder if Ryan and Lindsey are still together?
A brave winter sun presides over the District
They Call Columbia. Sixteen degrees with a wind chill taking the perceived
temperature down to single digits.
Thus 2018 breaks here.
But I’m in a warm
house; my car started without complaint earlier; I’m queuing things up for the
workweek ahead; and I’m in good health. I have much to be grateful for, and
that’s what I’m concentrating on for this first Gratitude Monday of the New
Year.
First: I don’t know the story behind this
company, but I just can’t help thinking that it’s a rather unfortunate name.
Kind of unfortunate for any company outside of the Disney® family, but especially
so for a moving service.
But while considering this notion, I got behind
this car and had more to ponder:
Several possibilities here. The numeral 1 could
be just that, or a substitute for the letter I. So is this an errand-running
service? Or a traveling nurse? Or a number-one nurse?
Year-end cleaning out my desktop brought these
photos I took at Wegmans a couple of months ago. (When I run out of things to
marvel at on the road, Wegmans never lets me down.)
These containers are in a refrigerated case in
the prepared fruit-and-veg aisle. (That’s where you go if you’re too pressed
for time to slice apples, peel carrots or chop celery. It’s also the place
where you can relieve yourself of discretionary income for the convenience.)
In case you’re not sure what this is, it’s 32-ounce
bottles of water-and… lemon slices, watermelon chunks, cucumber slices and
pineapple chunks.
And here’s what you pay for water flavored
according to someone else’s specs:
Yes, $3.49 for a quart of water with a handful
of fruit or veg in it. In a container that I hope to God you’ll at least put in
the recycling.
However, here’s the part that I find
disturbing: the disclaimer on the label warns that this very expensive water “May
contain Crustacean Shellfish, Eggs, Fish, Milk, Peanuts, Soy, Tree Nuts, Wheat”
on account of the handfuls of fruit and veg being tossed into the bottles in a “shared
preparation area”.
Maybe wanna toss your own fruit-and-veg into
your own purified water?
As you know, I am easily amused, and one of my
sources of entertainment is vanity plates—what people choose to proclaim via
the semi-permanent mechanism of their vehicle’s license plates is endlessly
fascinating to me. Such things are ongoing expenses: $10 to buy the plate from
the DMV; then $10 per year for as long as you still want it.
It’s more permanent than a bumper sticker; less
permanent than a tattoo.
So here’s one I find really interesting:
First, there’s the fox-hunting plate. Here’s
someone proudly proclaiming that they’re down with a quintessentially elitist
activity that can only be engaged in by people with much too much money and
time, the practice of which is inordinately destructive of farmland all out of
proportion to the keeping down of vermin. I mean, if The Old Dominion has a fox
problem, having overbred elements in ridiculously-overpriced outfits that can
only be worn for this pursuit, riding crash around across fields on heavy
hunters would not be an efficient solution.
But then there’s the vanity part of this plate.
Some Honda owner, whose priorities have already been called into question, is driving a
stake in the ground at Oracle SQL. And is paying $10 every year to do this.
I find it interesting that so many businesses
don’t close down during the period between Christmas and New Year. Trust me:
enough folks take time off because their kids are off school and they don’t
want to pay for either babysitters or the childcare premium that nothing gets
done anyhow.
This is the case at pretty much everywhere I’ve
worked in the past 20 years. Where I am now, you could hold World War II there
this week and no one would get hurt. I’m one of the ones there, since I only
take time off when I can use it productively.
This doesn’t stop me from collecting oddities,
however. As in this thread I found some time ago on LinkedIn—the “careers
networking platform” that has long since devolved into a cacophony of “look-at-meeee”
and sales spam. Here’s how it started out:
I don’t know whether this Mark Sloan bloke was deadly
serious or taking the piss; either way he exemplifies the whole LinkedIn ethos. However, the responses were definitely in the latter category:
Our culmination of the
songs of the season for 2017 goes back to 14th Century Germany, by
way of one of my all-time favorite collector/composers, Michael
Praetorius, with some input from our pal Martin
Luther.
It came down to us via
the 19th Century translation that swaps out the German for English,
retaining the Latin. We know it as “Good Christian Men, Rejoice”. (Fun fact:
when I was a kid I wondered why all the good Christian women were excluded.
Were they out fixing a meal? Or putting the kids to bed? I did not know.) It’s
also often sung in such a way as to make me think the choristers have been
hitting the Wassail—lotta glissando. It’s also one that I very often hear
performed by brass groups. It seems to suit those instruments particularly
well.
To give you an idea of
the macaronic thing, here are a couple of verses of the German version:
In dulci jubilo
nun singet und seid
froh!
Unsers Herzens Wonne
leit in praesepio,
und leuchtet als die
Sonne
Matris in gremio,
Alpha es et O, Alpha es
et O!
O Jesu parvule
nach dir ist mir so weh!
Tröst mir mein Gemüte,
o puer optime;
durch alle deine güte,
o princeps gloriae
trahe me post te.
Here it is, sung by the
choir of Exeter Cathedral:
The English version
(kind of mid-way between German and “Good Christian Men”) goes:
In dulci jubilo
Now sing with hearts
aglow
Our delight and pleasure
Lies in praesepio
Like sunshine is our
treasure
Patris in gremio
Alpha es et O
Alpha es et O
O Jesu parvule
For thee I sing always
Comfort my heart’s
blindness
O puer optime
With all thy loving
kindness
O princeps gloriae
Trahe me post te
Trahe me post te
And, “Good Christian Men,
Rejoice”:
Good Christian men,
rejoice
With heart and soul and
voice!
Give ye heed to what we
say
News! News
Jesus Christ is born
today!
Ox and ass before Him
bow
And He is in the manger
now
Christ is born today!
Christ is born today!
Good Christian men,
rejoice
With heart and soul and
voice
Now ye hear of endless
bliss
Joy! Joy!
Jesus Christ was born
for this
He hath ope’d the heav’nly
door
And man is blessed
evermore
Christ was born for this
Christ was born for this
And here it is sung in a
typically upbeat performance by a serviceable choir I’ve never before heard of.
